Canonical has announced the launch ‘of Ubuntu For Mobile in January, but with the unfortunate episode of Ubuntu Edge , it has not really been much news on the mobile version of the popular Linux distribution. However, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, revealed on stage LeWeb’13 in Paris that the company signed its first contract to sell Ubuntu on mobile smartphones !
If Shuttleworth did not reveal what the manufacturer partner with this version of Ubuntu, it still indicated that Ubuntu will arrive on high-end smartphones for 2014 . His announcement makes us think that it is clear then that the first agreement in a long series. “We talked with four partners who sell a lot of smartphones worldwide in emerging and fully emerged markets, businesses and consumers, “ said Shuttleworth.
As you can see in the video below, filmed on a Nexus 4 For Ubuntu Mobile is very fluid and is designed to run on two types of smartphones, the mid-range device, which needs to have a dual-core processor and at least 512MB of RAM, and the high end, which needs a quad processor with at least 1GB of RAM.
The main difference between the two is that the “high-end superphone “may well act as a PC when connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse ! If this is the type of high-end smartphone that Shuttleworth speaks, then 2014 could be very interesting indeed one year for the firm.
Of the mobile operating system market is teeming with more and more players, and for all newcomers will be difficult to have a significant impact on the market. Besides Android and iOS, companies like Microsoft or BlackBerry trying to increase their market share, and more recent newcomers like Firefox OS and Tizen to them about trying to emerge on the sector.
Now the question that may legitimately ask, is it possible that Ubuntu is emerging on the market already congested? It is clear that Canonical think it’s possible, and I also believe if the dream of having a device for everything is reality. With partnerships with popular services like Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Evernote, Amazon and Pinterest, Ubuntu has a secret weapon. Thank you to the Ubuntu SDK for native applications that can be written to run on all versions of Ubuntu , and that it is for the desktop version, Smart TV, tablets or smartphones. This is something that Google and Apple and not something that Microsoft has botched Windows offer.
Additionally, Canonical has done a great job to partner with operators - Vodafone, SK Telecom, Verizon, Deutsche Telekom, T -Mobile …
Shuttleworth sees mobile as a key element for the future of Ubuntu. While Canonical is not profitable today, it could be if the company is focused on mobile business, especially if we consider that the PC business is dead.
What do you think? The demo will she agreed?